Light olefin materials, including ethylene and propylene, represent a large portion of the worldwide demand in the petrochemical industry. Light olefins are used in the production of numerous chemical products via polymerization, oligomerization, alkylation and other well-known chemical reactions. These light olefins are essential building blocks for the modern petrochemical and chemical industries. Producing large quantities of light olefin material in an economical manner, therefore, is a focus in the petrochemical industry. The main source for these materials in present day refining is the steam cracking of petroleum feeds.
Naphtha cracking is used to produce much of the world's ethylene and propylene. It is commonly known that the different types of components that make up the naphtha give very different yields to ethylene and propylene. Generally, n-paraffins give the highest yield to light olefins followed by iso-paraffins, naphthenes and finally aromatics which generally pass through the cracker with only some dealkylation. Since the cost of the naphtha feed contributes the majority of the operatings costs, it is important to maximize yields to the most valuable products which are ethylene, propylene and butadiene.
Accordingly, it is desirable to maximize the conversion of naphtha to light olefins while minimizing conversion to mixed aromatics. Further, it is desirable to simultaneously produce a paraffin rich stream that can be fed to a naphtha cracker and a high quality aromatics rich stream that can be used as feed to aromatics complexes or blended into gasoline. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present subject matter will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the subject matter and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the subject matter.